Sorry You Need To Get Screened Before Your Flight, But The TSA Has No Females Working Right Now

A woman was trying to fly home to Colorado when she says she wasn’t allowed to board her flight because of her gender. Well, not just that she was a woman, but because there were no female Transportation Security Administration agents on duty when she was going through security.

Jennifer tells CBS 4 in Denver that the TSA couldn’t put her through proper pre-flight security because she was a woman and they weren’t staffed to handle her.

“I said if I was a man and I wanted to board would I be able to go through security they said, ‘Yes’ but because there were no female TSA agents I couldn’t,” she told the station.

Jennifer’s flight had been announced as delayed, and she had headed outside for a few minutes. That caused her to miss the final boarding call for her flight, and the last female TSA agent had left by the time she got to security.

“If I needed additional security and needed a pat down it has to be by a female agent and I asked him what if I didn’t need additional security and I just go through normally and I don’t need a pat down, and they said, ‘It doesn’t matter’ they needed a female TSA agent there to go through at all,” she explained.

The TSA’s view is that she had plenty of time to get through security, and shouldn’t have made a mad dash when final boarding was called. Their statement reads;

In this instance, SkyWest made final boarding announcements and notified TSA that no additional passengers would be accepted. In addition, a TSA officer also made two public announcements asking any remaining passengers to report to the security checkpoint for screening. After the both the flight and checkpoint were closed a female passenger requested screening.

Yes, Jennifer should’ve waited inside to hear her flight called, but letting her just undergo regular security procedures without a pat-down, per the usual routine a majority of passengersgo through, wouldn’t have been uncalled for.

Because they were not going to let any more passengers on by the time she had reached security. That being said just because it was her fault that she missed her flight doesn’t mean the TSA isn’t in the wrong. They should have had some way to screen her right then, but she would have missed the flight anyway.

If you have ever flown through these small airports, it is a different world. I fly in and out of a very small regional airport all the time and the TSA checkpoint will only let people go through security as a group for each flight that leaves…after this, they go and switch hats to screen all the luggage at a different location.

The airline calls the flight, the TSA staffs the checkpoint, everybody goes through and gets on the plane and the checkpoint shuts down. If she has flown this route, she should know the process.

On the other hand, the TSA could have just done the basic screening and moved on…

Did you miss the part where she got to the security gate after the airline said they weren’t accepting any more passengers? Or the part where they made a last call for anyone who needed to be screened to go through security? It sounds like even if a male had gone in at that point they wouldn’t have been able to board the flight.

I got to a gate once – in the security zone – and the flight was no longer accepting passengers. The woman at the gate kept saying no. But the plane was still there twenty minutes later. I finally said, “Look. There is the plane. Look. Here are six passengers waving tickets for this flight on this plane. We’ve been here twenty minutes, and the corridor is still out to the plane. Let us on!” The other passengers began rumbling in agreement.

And she hated it. But she went out to the plane, and came back, and let us on.

Sometimes the TSA is stupid. Sometimes the airline is stupid. Sometimes the gate droid is stupid. But if there are enough people with you, you can scare the stupid into hiding.

‚ÄúIn this instance, SkyWest made final boarding announcements and notified TSA that no additional passengers would be accepted. In addition, a TSA officer also made two public announcements asking any remaining passengers to report to the security checkpoint for screening. After the both the flight and checkpoint were closed a female passenger requested screening.‚Äù

Regardless of whether or not her specific flight was closed, TSA must maintain adequate personnel to screen all passengers. If a woman on another, non-closed flight had needed to get through security, she would have also been out of luck. This is 100% TSA’s fault. If the checkpoint is open for passengers at all, and TSA requires same-sex patdowns, then TSA is required to have a woman present at all times. End of story.

She would have been able to make the flight had TSA not FAILED. That makes it entirely 100% the fault of TSA.

Whenever TSA is in a condition that does not allow them to perform the necessary security checks, ALL outgoing flights MUST be suspended until TSA can restore proper security function (plus the time needed to clear the queue). This is called “responsibility”.

No, not 100%. Should she have allowed more time? Sure. But If TSA has gender specific screening, then they need to accommodate both genders at all times. Period. By your logic, it’s ok for a woman to have to stand around and wait for screening regardless of her flight schedule. You could do everything “right” (i.e. arrive for screening 2 hours before your flight) and still be screwed over by this security lapse.

Yes, it is 100% the TSA’s fault, because it is absolute insanity to have a security protocol that is so intrusive as to require same-gender gropers, but so completely ineffective that any bright 10-year-old could defeat it (hint: body cavities).

In most other countries, let alone countries that claim to be “the Land of the Free”, you don’t get groped as a condition of air travel. Because it’s stupidly ineffective security theater.

If a woman had been there to do the pat-down that may not have been needed, I’d be willing to bet that she would have been allowed through the checkpoint and would be complaining about how early her flight was closed rather than pointing out the TSA’s hypocritical policies.
The TSA has claimed that the patdown is in now way sexual and yet in this case they claimed that a man couldn’t pat her down. This implies that the patdown is sexual in nature.
In short: It is the passenger’s fault that she got there late but it is not her fault that the TSA denied her access to the secure area.

You’re suggesting the OP is not to blame at all? She was in the airport, she decided that because the delay, she needed to go outside for some reason – away from where she could hear announcements – instead of going through security and waiting like a normal person would likely do.

Flights get delayed…and sometimes, after calling a delay, they depart earlier than expected. That’s why you ALWAYS go to the gate and wait – or at least stay within a reasonable range where you can hear announcements. When final boarding is called, you should already be through security…it means everyone else is already on the plane and waiting for your slow ass.

Absolutely no where in this article did the passenger or the airline or the TSA say the passenger was given a return time. You are assuming one was given, when in fact, this is not stated anywhere and therefore cannot be assumed. As far was we know, she was told there was delay, hard stop.

I’ve flown SkyWest many times, with many delays. They tell you the flight is delayed and that they will make an announcement when boarding can begin.

I’ve waited 5 hours ‘on delay’ with SkyWest befor they finally canceled the flight. No less than 3 times during this delay did they tell us to queue up for boarding only for it to be canceled.

I blame the passenger – it was her fault for missing the announcements. The TSA could have reasonably accommodate her, it sounds like, so they get partial blame. But the majority of the blame goes to the passenger.

That’s a secondary point. The primary point is that she missed the cutoff time. They said they would have been able to accommodate her if she was a man, but they couldn’t. Because she was the cause of the primary failure, I place most of the blame on her. TSA handled her hailure badly, so bad customer service, but the situation itself was her fault.

Not at all the same thing and if the TSA “closes” at a certain time AND they made a warning announcement, it’s my fault that I missed it.

Again, I think it’s the passengers fault because the onus was on her to follow the instructions (which I realize she didn’t hear). She failed to do her part (show up in time), so what happened is mostly her fault. I almost always blame whoever fails first and she failed first. TSA failed by not providing a seemingly easy accommodation, but ultimately, none of this would have happened if she didn’t fail first (by showing up in time).

See the response of bender123 above. I feel like this is probably exactly what happened, which would make it the fault of the OP. She was flying out of Rock Springs Sweetwater County Airport. Not exactly a major hub.

The TSA may well have accommodated her, if it would do any good. But they knew it didn’t matter, the airline wouldnt have let her on the plane anyway. Why inconvenience themselves for a latecomer when there was no point to it?

So, the only one saying it was a gender issue is her and everyone from TSA/Airline say she just missed the time to get checked and it wasn’t a gender issue at all? As idiotic as TSA is I find her story really hard to believe,

In this case, sure it does, because I find her story very hard to understand. It is beyond belief, even for the incompetent people of TSA, that they wouldn’t let her go through screening on the chance that she might have to have additional screening that needed a female screener. It just doesn’t make sense that, if they could have put her through, they wouldnt have.

TSA isn’t a coffee shop, it is there to let anyone through who needs to board get screened. Not setting up a set of hours people need to go through. Don’t we go through 5000 hoops to accommodate TSA already? Honestly, TSA is the worst organization of aholes in America.

Fly from a small regional airport and tell me that…I fly from CWA (look it up) all the time and they only staff the security point from 45 minutes prior to flight time, until 10 minutes prior (AKA When they shut the door on the plane).

The reason for this is that there are hours between flights and the TSA agents have other duties around the airport or are sent home after the last flight is through. Our local airport has three people staffing it and they run the checkpoint, then go run the baggage screener, then do the all the other things. Small airports like this are not like your major international airports…they cant run the same way, or we would have thirty people sitting around for 10 hours a day wasting even more money than they already do.

Some other commenters familiar with this particular airport seem to suggest that they were properly staffed. It sounds like this is a small airport with infrequent flights, and that the last on-duty female TSA agent left following the final boarding call for this particular flight (which may or may not have been the last flight of the day, meaning there literally was no need for any more screening).

I’m not personally familiar with the airport so this is all second hand. I’d invite you to go read some other comments before dropping the “troll” label so quickly. Makes for better conversations.

I don’t usually ever side with the TSA, but on this one, once you’re through security, don’t leave! Why in the world would she “head outside for a few minutes”? I haven’t watched the video, but I wonder if she was a smoker. That’s the only reason I can think of that anyone would leave the secure area after being screened.

I’ll give you one example why not. I don’t know if this is the case at the airport in question, but it could be.

There are many small regional airports. The one where I used to live ( I worked part time for Delta) had 7 TSA agents on staff. Not 7 per shift. 7 total. Because of hiring freezes, they were unable to hire any additional staff.

Scheduling was a nightmare. In addition to their regular days off (2 days off in a row, just like most people, just not necessarily over the weekend) there was illness and scheduled vacation time to deal with. They always tried to have at least one female on duty (3 out of the 7 were women), but sometimes it was not possible.

Of course this means that I know that male TSA agents are allowed to screen women if there are no female agents available.

The Rock Springs airport is nothing like JFK or LAX. In small airports like that, it takes 5 minutes to get through security. Also, I’ve never been to that particular airport, but in most of those podunk airports, there are no services past the security checkpoint, possibly not even a bathroom. Since the flight was delayed, she had a reasonable expectation that she could go outside, then get back in without a problem.

I blame the TSA and the airline for this one. *If* the airline told the TSA that they were closed, they had to know that they were missing a passenger. Skywest planes hold like 20 people. It ain’t that hard to tell that someone is missing.

Actually I’m from Rock Springs and have flown in and out of there many times. I’ve never had this issue but I also never walk outside of the terminal. It’s large and spacious, and yes she would have had to go outside to smoke.

The point I came to make is this at this airport, there is a lobby with check ins and baggage check, as well as baggage claim and seating for waiting/pick ups. When it is announced that they are ready to screen, you line up to go through the security measures to another walled off room, glass windows on the front to see into the lobby. Once in here, the only real place to go is out to the tarmac to get on the plane. Usually when they are done screening everyone, they leave an agent to watch us and the rest leave the area (unknown where they go). Wait in this room is anywhere for 15 to 45 minutes while they prepare and load the plane. Then you get to walk out and on to the plane.

Well smokers get no sympathy.
If you already have taken away our civil liberties
why should security check points matter.
Get in line an do what the man with the stick tells you.
I’m glad there are millions of people deciding what is best for me.
Oh wait, your snowflake may be disturbed by the smell of smoke.
Like I could sue for all the D-bags that wear bodyspray, or the nusience of barking dogs.
I like my cancer, you however are a cancer that can’t be cured.
I miss the old world of storybooks where a man was free to get cholera if he wanted to.

If that’s the issue (sharing it with others) then she did the right thing by going outside.

I also think she went out to smoke. I’m torn on this one. As a regular traveler and a smoker, I never would go outside for a smoke on a flight delay, unless it was clearly and unequivocally going to be for hours, not minutes. Also, I usually try to fulfil my nicotine craving before I go through security, although I occassionally go back outside, depending on circumstances. Also, I always look to make sure there’s no huge lines at security before I go back outside, and if I am in doubt that there will be a security checkpoint open when I come back in, I ask the TSA.

That said, it’s the TSA’s job to provide screening, period. If they only have one woman on duty and she needs a break, then they should have two women on duty. That’s the cost of running a security checkpoint.

Well, just because you lack a brain doesn’t make her wrong. I don’t smoke but can, and have, left the sterile area after screening. It doesn’t matter why, there is no set time at which one must be screened. You are encouraged to get to the airport early and get screened early, and unless there were no other flights that day more people would need to be screened and she could as easily be way too early as barely in time. I tend to be very early for everything and have screened as much as 3 hours before my scheduled departure (hence my sometimes needed to e rescreened if my flight is delayed). The TSA does nothing to make us safer, and it’s long past time that we demand that they demean us on our schedule, not theirs.

As a follow up, I have had to fly out of a podunk airport regularly before (Duluth, MN), and if you weren’t there by “closing time” you didn’t get into the boarding area, regardless of what time the flight departed. I used to catch the last flight out on Fridays and knew, regardless of a delay, if I wasn’t there at the regular departing time I was screwed.

By the looks of her and that fact that she was outside, she was probably going for a smoke. It is obvious the airport is to blame here, not her or the TSA, because there was no smokers lounge in the airport.

People seem to be focusing on the fact she left the gate, but that is irrelevent to the issue here.

She WOULD have returned in enough time had the TSA been willing to screen her. And she wasn’t even chosen to be screened more securely, which would require some of the same sex. They wouldn’t even let her go through a metal detector because there was no female worker.

It sounds like from the article that she didn’t even get back to the security checkpoint until after the flight had closed, missing both final boarding announcements from the airline and additional calls for all passengers to report to the screening area by the TSA agents. So even if they had screened her, she wasn’t going to be able to get on that flight. While stupid, them not screening her is irrelevant to her missing the flight.

This, of course, assumes you believe what the TSA said in their statement is accurate.

“SkyWest made final boarding announcements and notified TSA that no additional passengers would be accepted” and “After the both the flight and checkpoint were closed a female passenger requested screening.‚Äù

The flight was closed before she got to security! She was not going to get on the flight even if they let her go through security. It’s her fault for leaving and going outside where she couldn’t hear announcements.

So they delayed the flight but then closed all passengers from it? That makes no sense. Their statement is probably not completely accurate in terms of the overall timeline. I don’t doubt they did what they said, but probably not before she attempted to come back through.

Her timeline doesn’t give us the full story. As far as I can tell, here is the time line I see: flight delayed – passenger leaves terminal – screening begins – last boarding call given – airline says no more passengers accepted – passenger returns – TSA refuses request (we’ll leave reason out).

Since the linked article says she ‘went outside for a little while’ we cannot accruately determine scope of time here. Was it 3 minutes from when she left? Or did she go outside for an hour?

I have also flown through this airport several times (being that it’s my home airport) and I’ve never had issues getting through screening or following all directions given as far as getting through security. I’ve been there when several flights have also been delayed and never had have an issue hearing announcements or completing screening. They staff the airport for when there is activity going on. If activity had stopped, in this case screening due to the direction of the airline that they were accepting no more passengers, why just have someone(s) sit around? It wouldn’t matter if they could screen her or not, since the airline wouldn’t let her on the flight.

The airline gave the final boarding call and the flight was closed. Once that information was given to the TSA, the woman that was there, left. She came in after the fact and wanted to get on the plane and was denied. That’s it. At small airports like that, there are usually long periods of time where there is no plane activity and is possible it was planned already for the female agent to leave after that flight. Not saying that is certainly the case, but possible.

She was free to head outside but missed the final announcements and her flight. Now she is blaming her gender on it? Please.

My guess on the secure screening, would be anyone choosing to wait until after the gate has officially closed to go through screening is one of the groups that gets selected for the additional patdown.

Without knowing more details, I’d really be inclined to blame the Airline over the TSA or the Woman in this case.

The TSA is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars that could be spent on a countless number of more important things, but instead our money is forcibly taken from us via taxes for garbage that only serves to destroy our personal liberties. Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who has continuously fought against this corrupt, costly, and incompetent federal agency.

James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 ‚Äì June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845‚Äì1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835‚Äì1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839‚Äì1841). Polk was the surprise (“dark horse”) candidate for president in 1844, defeating Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party by promising to annex Texas. Polk was a leader of Jacksonian Democracy during the Second Party System.

ignoring the argument about whether the passenger waited too long before attempting to re-enter security…

The article indicates that at the end of the day, the last female employee left at a time that the checkpoint was still open. This implies that at this point, only male passengers would be allowed to pass through security. Thus, passengers are being discriminated upon, based on their sex.

It seems the airport needs to either change their scheduling policy, where they don’t have both genders represented at all times, or the policy about only allowing females to to be screened by females needs to change.

Sure, so a woman getting screened by a man can scream he touched her breasts or groped at her crotch. Anyone else hear discrimination lawsuit? A female must patdown a female, those are the rules. OP went outside (for what reason we’re not given) and the airline shut down boarding and announced no more passengers.

If it was because the flight was closed, they should have told her that. Since they opted to confirm to her that if she were male she would have been allowed to pass through, they brought the problem upon themselves.

Listen, I’m no fan of the TSA, but what really happened is the passenger missed her flight. It’s her fault. The airline announced that the flight was closed to boarding. If you’re on the wrong side of the security checkpoint when your flight is closed to boarding, you’re not getting on whether you clear security or not. If you read the article, the TSA closed the checkpoint after the flight was closed to boarding. That’s the way it works at small airports like this.

I have not missed a flight, yet, but I have been similarly delayed b/c there are not enough female TSA agents to provide the required same sex groping. If you are going to require a same sex groping, hire enough people or just let me go through the metal detector.

This is her fault not the TSA, if final boarding was called and the TSA checkpoint was closed and they had announced it, it is her fault for not making it through security and onto the aircraft. If guarantee you she is a smoke and having a quick cigarette was more important than going through security and making her flight it is her fault. Now the only place the TSA screwed up was if they did say “if she was a man it wouldn‚Äôt be a problem”, at this point it is her word against the TSA. I honestly think she dropped the ball on this one and is trying to find someone to blame.

If TSA Security checkpoint is closed and the airline says no further boarding will be allowed it is her fault for not being through security or inside where should could hear announcements. She should have been smart enough to at least have stayed within ear shot so she could hear announcements. I have been to the Rock Springs Airport, it is small and you get screened as you board, if boarding is complete and screening is closed its her fault. This has nothing to do with rights or civil liberties or sexual discrimination.

What good would it have done to let her through TSA? the last plane had stopped boarding passengers. If you forego an adequate screening on passengers who need to go through at the last moment you set up just the hole in security that the bad guys will exploit.

Lady was probably haning in the non secure area with her family for too long. Jesus Christ, stop with the long goodbye’s, you’re taking a flight get there early and GO THROUGH SECURITY and sit and wait near the gate like everyone else.

I blame the passenger. I’m responsible so I’m on the plane. Because you’re irresponsible the plane of people has to wait for you. I don’t like the TSA either but why should everyone be inconvenienced if you weren’t being an adult.

Yeah, cause schools don’t truly have to compete for customers. The govt subsidies just serve up the students at whatever cost the schools want to charge.
But it’s being detrimental to all the kids that have to take out large loans now. The schools are getting their money through guaranteed govt funding but then it’s falling on the backs of our youth.
The govt pouring more money into education isn’t going to lower costs at all. It’s like if all of a sudden you knew someone would start giving you $500 more each month to help you out. Would that extra money cause you to put the $500 to use or would you actually seek to cut costs so that eventualy they didn’t need to give you the $500?

I love how the TSA completely denies the existence of lesbians. If the whole same-gender screenings are to save us poor females from being fondled by vicious men out for our ladyflower, wouldn’t women who like women pose an equal “threat”? The TSA is mostly stupid.

I say this despite my disdain for this passenger. If you have ever had a flight get delayed, you know not to leave the boarding area for too long pending flight announcements. If they weren’t accepting any more passengers at the gate, it’s totally her fault.

The trouble is, it’s difficult to know if we’re getting the whole story. This is her line about the “discrimination”

“”I said if I was a man and I wanted to board would I be able to go through security they said, ‘Yes’ but because there were no female TSA agents I couldn’t,” she told the station.”

Now, prior to that, for all we know, they may have said, there are no female staff on duty, however, if you’re happy to, we will have one of our male staff search you. To which this line follows. However, this may not be the case at all.

Shouldn’t they always ensure there are both a male, and female agent, at the very least, on duty all the time. It might have been because nobody was allowed on the flight, but stating she couldn’t get on because she was a woman made it a whole lot more troublesome for them.

I hate the TSA and think they should be eliminated. And yes, having same-gender screeners around should not be regarded as a high enough priority that people are allowed to miss their flights. TSA has once again proven that they cannot handle even the simplest prioritization of their own regulations. But that said…

“Jennifer’s flight had been announced as delayed, and she had headed outside for a few minutes. That caused her to miss the final boarding call for her flight…”

I don’t know what her idea of “a few minutes” is, but it sounds like she was out there for a bloody lot longer than that, if she stayed outside the entire time that it took her flight to not only catch up, but be ready to close the doors. I suspect “extended smoke break” here, but she should’ve at least got her happy arse back inside to check to see whether her flight’s departure time had been updated.